


all at sea

by inspectorwired



Category: One Piece
Genre: Canon Compliant, Introspection, M/M, character/relationship study, prose poetry of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 15:11:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17004015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inspectorwired/pseuds/inspectorwired
Summary: Luffy dances around him, touches his arms and shoulders and cheeks, rests his hands on Law’s waist like it’s his, and just as it’s about to become too much, as Law is about to warn something akin to aDon’t hold me so tight, claustrophobia clutches as much as you do, and neither of the two I know what to do with; if you don’t, so help me I, he recedes like the tide, slides out of Law’s field of focus, and it doesn’t lighten or relieve, on the contrary; it feels like he made a hole in the shape of his absence.Law doesn't know what to do with this, how to go about it yet; conventions and customs, all learned behaviors are rendered useless in the face of him, he’s never met anyone like him.





	all at sea

****Wartime feels somewhat like a festival, he learned a long time ago: a truth that it turned out to be, nevermind having started off a pretty lie (white, like the city rubble, hospital bed sheets, the spots on her skin; like the chunks of snow, seeping down in silence, soaked with blood, just outside the treasure chest and his sight. He doesn’t like the color white).

But Law thinks about this truth, lying on his back against his will, the skin of the beast carrying him rough and uncomfortable as he reels, slumped, undignified (rocks, potatoes, metaphors), his skin prickling with what he struggles hard to shape into annoyance.

Fireworks and firearms, their components alike - the gunshots, raised voices, a sense of urgency, a feeling that, _If I don't do this now_ , that _If I don't exist properly today, I may never get a chance to_ \- they go for both the occasions, celebrations and mayhem.

Seastone is digging into his wrists, sucking up his strength, a sink, he can’t help but think.

"My brother is fighting near here,” Strawhat mentions, an afterthought, hand on Law’s waist, tugging him closer with every bump in the road that has him slipping down the steeper slope of the bull's back.

 _Isn't your brother dead_ , he means to say but doesn’t, the remark seems stupid at the moment, because if at any moment he would choose to believe the dead to be coming alive it would be this one, if anyone, it would be this person causing it.

Around them, a horde larger in numbers than anything he’s dared hope for. A loud, whooping, cheering bunch, going to war with trust in someone they only just met today - completely insane, they are, and he is the same.

“We’re doing this,” someone shouts; “Stomp onwards, brothers and sisters,” another exclaims, just before he thinks he hears a _Yes_ , coming from somewhere in the crowd, and a, “She said yes!”

Strawhat, cackling loudly, urges it onward; he’s close enough that Law would be able to feel the vibrations of his voice, if they weren’t being drowned out by the tremors of the entire city grounds.

“Good for them, shishi.”

He’s kept the same composure, same careless resolution even through the chaos and frenzy that’s been going down all around him ever since they met - _Not around_ , Law realized at some point; _He's not caught up in it but the epicenter, the very source of this madness, this boy, isn’t he?_

"Can't believe it!" he continues, as he does, goes off in the middle of a sentence just to sew it onto another one, a haphazard stream of consciousness, "Thought Sabo’s been gone since we were kids, you know?"

Law doesn’t know who Sabo is, so he chooses nothing to counter with, again; feigning ignorance, on par with the feigned innocence of his partner, ally, accomplice, all that was clear that they wouldn't ever be, ever since the start of this mess. All that and more, less, as if he could ever be confined into a single title, this tsunami in the shape of a person, all expectations - not forgotten, rather, disregarded.

Even now, after all’s been said and nearly ended, and Law ended exactly where he thought he would, another piece in its place - even now, he won’t leave it alone, won’t leave _him_ alone, he charged in without a second thought, leaving Law's lines all ignored and stepped over, personal space littered with handprints all over.

He just can't go quietly, can he?

 

It comes slow, the realization that he was wrong - that they’re wrong, those words that he heard and chose to believe in. The claim echoes, weight on each letter, word; puncture wounds; _Only the weak don't get to choose_ , not untrue, but - this doesn't mean that the strong can't be cowards in their choices.

The thought comes to mind and comes back around oftentimes after the first, after this unwanted salvation and the silhouette of a mussy, bloody boy standing above him, atop of where he’s lying with his back pressed against the dirt for what feels like a thousandth time today, hiding a grimace under his hand, swallowing dry air and liquid salt; not a single excuse for letting himself cry, but letting _him_ see it is almost as unforgivable.

An irrational thought, he sees after - Strawhat never cared about that. Laughter and tears, they're both consequences of being alive, not anything to feel shame about.

The rest of it is a blur of coincidences, desperation and hope - nothing left to him but wait, something he's had years of practice for - his limbs aching, his chest worse. He can't see the fight, it's out of his sight, but he can feel it, can feel him, exchanging blows, burning like nothing Law’s seen; he’s unsure of the exact moment in which he thinks, _I'm going to give my life for this man._

 

Strawhat is on the bed with a friend: splayed like a starfish, limbs spread whichever way, passed out after the fight, and Law lets it be the last thing he sees before another drop of his eyelids.

A sheathed blade between his neck and the floor is more an illusion of safety than a makeshift pillow, it disappears in the gap, he doesn’t even feel it. Position he’s in, the comedy of it would’ve left him long ago if he spared any to begin with, for this, the fact that he’s horizontal, yet again, surrounded by people, most of whom are not. Some are lying injured, some still talking, but Law is not; he’s not far from gone, thoughts and emotions mixed, motions above him, around him.

Voices blend together as he slowly oscillates between asleep and awake; he hears his own snores bubble in his throat but would swear on his alertness if anyone brought attention to the fact.

At one point, distantly, he blinks into focus the sight of blonde locks under a tall hat, hears a voice and a name, remembers the conversation he had on that giant bull and thinks, _So that’s who_ , thinks of family and not even the one he’s lost. He doesn’t get up when Strawhat’s brother kisses his forehead and walks out of the room, spring in his step; doesn’t shake Strawhat awake.

He sleeps and doesn’t dream of anything solid, but wisps and whispers, unfamiliar songs on the tip of his tongue; of fairy tales, fading nights, festive lights, a voice, unknown but familiar, reminding _You promised_ , but not saying what; of his king of hearts, of another king for future times, and two silly, infectious smiles, _rejoice_ , an offering, _I’ll make it all better._

Wishfulness or reality - neither, both, he's unsure, because this smile, it's not _it_ , not one he last saw years ago, not close, but another kind of painful altogether. Even so, he found himself comparing them, that “I'm pretending, rest assured with my false reassurance,” and this one, ”I believe in it so much that I could burst.”

When he rolls into half-consciousness, sticky like honey, he can't guess the hour, tired still, thirsty like he's been drowning in salt. Strawhat is on the floor with him, breathing slowly, holding him close, arm and leg cushioned by Law's stomach. He's as battered as the last time they spoke, bandages over cuts and scratches and blows, mud on his cheek, the angle that he's bent in looking anything but comfortable - but the face he's making is content, familiar and light, and for a fleeting moment Law is overwhelmed by a fondness that bites.

He’s the first to fully wake, or at least he tells himself so; and he gets up and runs away, and doesn’t admit to himself so.

Strange thing with things in life that are this way, this huge, is that after they end, it doesn’t feel like they did. He can't brush off the sense that there’s something missing, something to do, finds himself pacing around, unsettled, every few seconds reminding that there’s nothing left for him to do. It’s all over, and they won, and Dressrosa is far behind, pieces of it kept with him only in memories and the dust on his clothes, dirt under his fingernails.

He survived, left to chew on the aftermath of it all; of whatever the story happens to be, one of tiny people and civil wars, open secrets and closed spaces, small miracles, as well as huge ones, earthquakes melded with mere thoughts and decades-lasting empires taken down with a word, a grin, a fist, an eternity over in a flash: fairytale-like, some would say. He can’t help being stuck on how the executions of most people’s funeral plans don’t end nearly as grand, or as unsuccessful as his own.

They’re back on the ship, swaying forwards, salt in the air, wind in their clothes, the feeling as foreign as it gets, a sailor that he is; he’s out of his element, out here on the open sea, open air, above the surface.

People from the island are sending them off still, no matter the island being not even a dot on the horizon by now, this chunk of celebrations splintered from the bigger one left ashore, neither to stop any time soon. The selfish fleet are spilling drinks, saying vows and making noise; making waves, the beginnings of history, barely even aware of it, he’s aware that they don’t think anything of it. Their noise feels as if in a bubble separate from him, like he’s observing them through glass, through memory.

Distantly, he remembers the couple that proposed to each other in a spur of a moment, back there, on the battlefield. Somehow he heard it through all noise and panic, caught a _When this is over, if we survive,_  among the voices, _Be mine, won’t you?_

A stray confetti lands on his cheek.

They make him think of it, their predictability, kisses shared on impulse, heartbeats spent to make promises to last a lifetime; of how it’s when the world is off kilter that people seem to become close enough to their own mortality just enough to ignore it, the time that they get, mere seconds of the universe’s lifespan, just like everything that is, was, will be, crashing against feverish, hysterical whims of fate, sparks only seconds away from fading.

How didn't he ever learn the feeling, not after having been so close to death, so many times?

A silly thought.

The fact of the matter, in fact, not that it matters, is that as he is, as things are, he’s left to just _be_ , and he doesn’t know how to do that.

And, there is no other option. He’s not afraid of the alternative - he possesses nothing even loosely resemblant of the fear of death - but he would be kicking and screaming to the ends of the earth before he be taken, anything rather than go peacefully.

Strawhat loves life to a fault.

Law sees him all over the ship like a bouncing ball, filling his lungs and laughing from his belly and singing off key, follows his movements with his eyes whenever he inches closer, and doesn't reach out, because that would be stupid, why would he do _that_.

 

Turns out, he doesn't have to.

He blinks in and out of focus, looking at the surface of the ocean crash against the ship’s belly, but then, when he snaps out of his daze yet again, there’s a grinning face inches from his own, tips of their noses all but touching. All up in his space, smiling into his face, he’s too close.

“You’re not drinking with the rest of ‘em.”

Law gives a small grin to match. “Neither are you.”

“Nope! That’s boring.”

He’s always like this, has been ever since they met. Both space invading and not nearly near enough for comfort, breath on his cheek, _Not like that_ , laughter in his ear, he’d say something but his sentences’ split ends are losing conclusions even unspoken, crumbling like sandcastles, Law wants to do something that he will fiercely regret. He is too close.

“Is it, now.”

A nod, an absolute, a hand squeezing his shoulder, and Law wants to get closer, to run away.

Strawhat keeps still for a split second more, grabs his sleeve with one hand and grins wider, as if it's so _easy_ , so much that Law tricks himself into thinking that, maybe, it is - but then he's gone already, back to where the music is louder, his favorite spot in the bullseye of the crowd, shouting back and forth with one of the fleet leaders, gesticulating wildly.

Looking at him feels like everything Law doesn’t want to want, everything he doesn’t dream of having, as rare as it is for him to dream.

He can’t do this, he knows.

Him from years ago could maybe have, would have let himself fall, but it was too long ago for him to remember the moment or the feeling, even the cells that he was comprised of all replaced and gone by now; facts of science, more than eleven, and he doesn’t know the boy that he used to be back then.

 _I can’t do this,_  he thinks again, but Strawhat turns back to look at him from the center of the room, crinkle in his eyes, delighted, like he’s holding the planet on his palmtop, humming, spinning like a humming top, daring him to try.

Law pushes his hat down over his forehead, then, edges himself microns closer to calm, and tries to think of anything else but the absurdity of the ways in which a thing, a person, a feeling can become familiar after only weeks - some old and some new, years of wait and miles and knots in between, but no more than a few weeks nonetheless.

He didn't know a thing back then, when he rushed into the battlefield for a stranger, broke through the water surface from beneath, did he, yelling at the top of his lungs for someone to check if he still breathes; he had no idea.

 

There's a weight in his lap.

Unceremoniously dropped, a pile of lanky elbows and knees, not uncomfortable as much as they should be, twisting and bending unlike how they should be, and Law glares instead of choking out something that he'd hope would get drowned out by the music and voices around.

“Hey!”

There's a weight in his lap and Law should know better than to comment, hoping that his flickering nerves won't be - acknowledged, not noticed, because Law still doesn't know what Strawhat doesn't notice and what he chooses to ignore.

He breathes in stuffy air, too warm if not stale, and finds the words in him that sound somewhat sane.

“Care to move?”

He hums, hands all over Law’s back, “Not really.”

_Brat._

Soon enough, before he knows it, the voices get louder, the world narrows down and the focus point of the festivities around them shifts towards the very space that they’re occupying. Strawhat turns around to wave in greeting at the people approaching. They're singing loudly, clashing mugs and barrels together with such a momentum that Law all but anticipates them to crack open over their heads.

Of course; this natural catalyst for chaos of all sorts, they're now sitting at the center of it, nothing new. He's not at all unsettled, and Law doesn’t know how he does it, he doesn't.

“I suppose you’ll want to leave.”

Strawhat blinks down at him. “Why?”

On any other night, he'd be fine with not offering anything in return as an answer to this answer-question, but this is a night for whims and wishes and he’s got neither to spare, still wrestling with the sense of meaning, driving force and the lack thereof, a clutter of emptiness he’s near settled on never having gone, only to be proven wrong.

“A little boring to have on a celebratory night,” he says, leaving out the subject, and pretends that he’s good at being vague.

“You're funny,” Strawhat tells him and stays, one gummy arm hooked around his neck as the other swings around a piece of steak that he grabbed from one of the far tables when Law wasn't looking. He may be right.

Pinned down with this, he pins his focus to the giggles soaking into his shoulder, the smell of food and sake and wine, muted voices, ringing chimes, and for some reason he can almost see it, the easiness of the way the world works.

He doesn't think about it much before he lets his good arm bend around the waist before him, shifts closer, pulls Strawhat into his space.

Law can’t see him anymore, not in this position, but can all but feel the cheeks stretched with snickers of joy, bare teeth over his pulse.

After, things are quite the same. Or, they’re not the same, not quite, but then again, nothing ever is - other than the things that are, of course, because Law knows that only fools deal with absolutes, and while he is a fool, he’s not the kind that does. But there’s no fundamental difference to what’s between them, and it has him on edge, waiting for an explanation, confirmation, at least an excuse.

He doesn't do anything, then or after; doesn't get any closer or fill the gap with any advances, and Law is at loss.

Something in him firmly claims that this is nothing but a whim, that it doesn't matter, and he should know better than to think it’s because of _him_  and not because that is the way Luffy _is_ : he moves around freely and shares words and touches with everyone, and just because Law reacts to it different than most, it doesn’t make him different than most.

This is a lie, something else in him insists, and he knows this one true, no matter all the other sides. He's not like this with anyone else.

Luffy dances around him, touches his arms and shoulders and cheeks, rests his hands on Law’s waist like it’s his, and just as it’s about to become too much, as Law is about to warn something akin to a _Don’t hold me so tight, claustrophobia clutches as much as you do, and neither of the two I know what to do with; if you don’t, so help me I_ , he recedes like the tide, slides out of Law’s field of focus, and it doesn’t lighten or relieve, on the contrary; it feels like he made a hole in the shape of his absence.

Law doesn't know what to do with this, how to go about it yet; (doesn’t want to think of the presence of this _yet_ ).

Finding a good way to react to it is impossible, if he thinks about it; conventions and customs, all learned behaviors are rendered useless in the face of him, he’s never met anyone like him.

It’s a party, a part of the numerous ones that they hold, the excuse having slipped Law’s mind, because - the reasons for holding them are never anything but that, an excuse shaped like a cause; because, it’s never anything but this, simple: a celebration of being alive. It’s a party, and Luffy is flushed and warm and out of breath from running around the place, talking to everyone he knows, which is everyone present, and if someone didn't know better they'd think he's been drinking something other than juice, that there's a need for a pickup for his usual.

And, being himself, painfully predictable and predictably reclused, Law is sitting somewhere on the side, idly tracing his eyes over the chaos unraveling. Strawhat’s all but battling the festivity headfirst, again, as always; and Law feels as if he knows, like he's always on the line that separates the two, somewhere close.

Then, there’s a warmth before a voice and a voice before a touch and a hand over his, and he knows who it is before he registers any of the parts as the parts of a whole.

“They spilled sake,” a giggle in his ear, breath on his neck, fingertips hot against a patch of skin near his stomach, making Law pause and keep balance on his own private tightrope, _Don’t shiver_ ; forgetting about it all in seconds when the details distract him, because,

“Are you _wet_?”

“Yeah, they spilled it on me.”

 _Oh, did they_ , he thinks, less put off by the fact than he’d have thought, but doesn’t even think about saying it out loud. He shakes his head and pulls Luffy tighter, thoughts stirred, doesn’t matter.

Luffy shifts closer, then, takes his hand and says something that Law misses completely, every single breathy, misused word; and then he's leaning in - nothing unexpected, he's been dancing on the edges of Law's personal space ever since they first met - but then he kisses him on the mouth, quick and clumsy, more teeth than lips and so natural that it catches Law off guard.

“You…”

He saw it, earlier this evening, Luffy and a few of his crewmates chasing each other around the table - a game that ended with a few overturned chairs and shattered shards of a bottle of exquisite sake, the liquid half on the ground and half soaking their clothes, earning them the expected, outraged screams of their cook.

 _Chekhov's gun_ , he thought then, idly, inexplicably; let the thought hang in the air, in between laughter and smoke, and he doesn’t bother recalling it now, when Luffy cups his face into his hands and leans in, again, twice more, makes each one longer than the last; barely registers that his cheek is wet and sticky when he tastes salt.

Luffy's still grinning when he pulls away, bounces back down from the balls of his feet and rudely wipes his face with the back of his hand, face flushed, showing gums, and Law can’t help it when something in his chest tightens like a fist.

 

He doesn't file it under embarrassment, any part of what he feels in moments like this, surreal and grounding alike, breathy pecks peppered all over his neck, face, shoulders; a dance of another sort. Not embarrassment, somewhat different than fear, more, he's not sure.

A lot of them happen in passing, surprise attacks that he's still getting used to, doesn't think he will ever get used to.

A more private person himself, he waits until they're alone, no eyes of others in sight before he falls apart, allows himself to act rather than look.

This is another one of their differences, that he can’t help but keep notice of, like everything else, connecting facts like dots with lines, trying to draw some sense of security out of it, foolishly categorizing in search of some safety, sanity: Luffy's kisses are like afterthoughts, offhand comments, light and easy as breathing; Law's are heavy and desperate, bottled pleas lost at sea, _Save me, I'll drown_.

 

One of the stranger - in the lack of a word better, more fitting - things about it, traits of his, is this dichotomy of his. Law looks at the eye of the storm that he breathes harder without, and, for a fragment of a second, sees both sides of him as clearly, and the two clash in his mind, dissonant, in sync - the monster who takes down islands and kingdoms, brings the strongest of wills down to their knees with just a look, and this peaceful, smiling boy, resting against his shoulder, laying low, eyelids closed against the faint light melting above them, lulled by the ocean rocking below.

An peculiar kind of duality, this - looking at him now, all the while feeling as if, any second now, he could raise his hand and idly tug on one of the world’s seams, have it come apart completely.

The sky is wailing outside, a storm raging against the waves, his heart is thumping inside his chest and he's got the future king of pirates in his bed.

Well, not if he can help it. The title is what he is after, as well, after all.

It stills but never settles, this small lie that he sometimes makes for himself, so he ignores it and scoots closer, feels warm breath on his collarbone.

This is another one of the words that he lacks, as being taken to bed usually means something other than this: being content next to each other, no fabric between them, enjoying just the quiet and touch. His back to the mattress, he has his arms folded around Luffy, one shoulder using as a pillow. Luffy is unable to stay silent but he's sleepy and still, more so than the world usually sees him as, humming something about how animals scare away from thunderstorms; lips against neck, tickling with air.

Another flash of lightning dances on his skin and fades, leaving for the patterns of the rivers flowing down the window glass to take its place. Law counts, _one, two, three_ , a silly superstition, _four_ , but he does it anyway, _five_ ; hears a crash, the cabin barely shaking.

“Five miles away,” he murmurs, and doesn’t realize he said it loud enough to hear until Luffy lifts his head up just a little, grazes Law’s cheek with his own when he snuggles closer and back down in another flash,

“Don’t let Nami hear you.”

Law hums in response, not nearly clear enough to understand, but Luffy does anyway; or guesses, instinct in his blood never failing to lead him straight to where he wants to go.

“Yeah, I know. She really hates supervisions like that, though.” He smiles.

 _Superstitions_. “How boring of her.”

“That’s what I said!”

The tone of voice makes a smile tug on the edges of Law’s lips. He barely even tries to stop them by this point.

The next second has Luffy springing out of the bed, distracted by thunder, talking about wanting to go fishing for the big ones; maybe they got scared off by it, drawn into shallow waters unknown. He seems serious about it, too, so Law puts off deciding if the coating of his sentiments is rather exasperation or fondness; the distinction that seems harder with each second spent with Luffy.

 _Both_ , he decides, and gets up to follow suit.

 

He doesn't dare think anything along the lines of _Only you_ , the claim meaningless though true. If it had been anyone else Law would've ended them, left in pieces scattered across the blues, but it hadn't, and so he didn't, swept in this pace, the rules don't apply.

He tried saying _No_ , but he heard a _Follow me_ and the refusal didn't even get past being conceived, an idea and then nothing, holding onto the offered hand like a lifebelt. He would have to be blind to not see it as the inevitable end result that it was, bottom destination of a pebble snowballing down a cliff, he had no choice at all from the start, and he doesn’t mind.

 _A joint trait of everything that stayed_ , he traces a pattern over past scars, never ceasing to look for dualities, similarities, _Stunning yet suffocating, a shared quality of everything that loved me._

 _He loves me_ , he thinks then; it comes to him, stupid in its simplicity. And, for the first time, he doesn't try for an argument, even if one only encased inside his mind, doesn't push back and follow it with a _Stop it, don't_ , as if Luffy can hear, _I don't like it when you see the best in me,_  but holds it close to his heart, keeps it as true; and it doesn't hurt.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u so much for reading!


End file.
